Civilization 6 and The Fate of Empires

The Fate of Empires by John Glubb is a work that has managed to pervade many discussions of history, casual and academic, despite lacking the rigor of a genuine academic undertaking. I thought I'd explore that while also going over what the actual "fall" of empires looks like, while also exploring Civilization 6's approach to "falls." It was a tough call between using Civ and Age of Empires to demonstrate this, but I think AoE kind of lacks mechanics that really show downturns. You just lose when some guy converts your catapult to Christianity and it betrays you.
Thanks to the people who've been engaging with my work. Part of me generally assumed I was being too stubborn and niche when I decided to critique strategy games for their history, but apparently this work appeals to some people out there, which is great.
At this point, I'm fairly certain there won't be a 100 sub Q&A because I'm already past 200 by a little.
Oh also I forgot to ask people to subscribe or whatever, so maybe it still counts if I do it here, 500 words deep into a description.
NOTE: The credits of songs are wrong because Lacrimae was copyright claimed and so I swapped it for a Vic 2 track. Sorry for any confusion.
__________________
00:00 intro
02:38 Civ and rising and falling
05:37 Glubb and his theory
11:55 Where Civ and Glubb meet
19:37 conclusion
21:19 Outro
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The ‪@Shaun_vids‬ video I mentioned:
• Stefan Molyneux's Fall...

[@Faehen]

the empries actually fall because every 250 years a huge event chain is fired that causes huge debuffs

[@ghostleemann955]

hoi4

[@seiban8455]

Yeah this is true the player in charge of the USA right now is fucking malding

[@hyperboreanmustache]

Basically jews move in and do their schemes

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

Remindes me of that time Ohio had the chance to succed on the "Empire within an Empire" campain.

[@noxanneballadynasowacka6125]

The empire falls when you reclaim Britannia but you forgot to pick tanistry elective and your player heir is like the count of a barony in Iceland.

[@themi0598]

>count of a barony ah yes i am the king of the duchy of somerset que?

[@sunyavadin]

Pretty sure empires fall when you blow up two of their Death Stars, no?

[@sunyavadin]

Pretty sure empires fall when you blow up two of their Death Stars, no?

[@Fish_King]

This is a certified Gavelkind classic

[@Blossomy77]

And then atilla attacks and the ai is to incompetent to stop it before you. Can try and reclaim the empire

[@barsguzel7559]

Problem for games to simulate a fall of an empire, if player's nation/empire enter into decline or fall state, they simply start new game.

[@PhoenixStriker1]

As a developer you’d have to make the decline interesting and fun to play, but you’d also have to balance whether or not you’d want declines to only occur as a result of player mistakes or if you want them to suffer RNG penalties. If you use RNG, players would get frustrated by lack of agency, but if you based it around player failure then meta players would simply never experience declines.

[@Whiskers4169]

@@PhoenixStriker1I like the idea of crisis’s that would happen using rng that would make you enter a decline depending on how well the player can handle it It would reward good crisis managers and make it realistic when the players empire falls. It would also make the game more dynamic.

[@davidrocksvideogames]

@@Whiskers4169I think the problem is that even tho Charlegmagns (don't pester me abt spelling bc idc😭) empire split into three, the modern successor states of France, Italy, and Germany are far more powerful individually today then they ever were united then. Alot of games disisentivise losing, as the whole "snowball" effect is really hard to balance around. In games like EU4 you either blob out or you don't and get blobbed by some other neighbor blobbing out. Get blobbed nerd

[@MrGilang100]

To be fair you can make it challenging and rewarding like Western Roman Empire in Attila Total War or to a lesser extent, Ming in EU4.

[@davidrocksvideogames]

@@MrGilang100 that would be awesome tbh, a decay meter, just the only thing in a game like civ is "around what actions WOULD you even classify as a decay". with the Ming in eu4 and the WRE in Attila, they have historical context for moments that in the real world DID signify decay so.

[@AlanValdes]

I swear this channel is made for the most niche audience ever and I love it

[@Leo-ok3uj]

Is made for amateur historians who so happen to enjoy Paradox/Civ and similar games Is very niche, but I am pretty sure we can go even more niche

[@wildfire9280]

@@Leo-ok3uj Maria has logged in.

[@oscarwind4266]

Agreed

[@HitandRyan]

So...was Glubb just an old conservative British man in 1976 lamenting the loss of the British Empire and applying it to all of history?

[@donbionicle]

Feels that way. He seems to have decided that going forth and subjugating everyone you could reach was how you measured success. Don't pay too close attention to the fact he was part of the tail end to a very wide-spread subjugation apparatus that really hit its stride 250~ years before his prime...

[@MatthewChenault]

Not really, no. A lot of this work seems to be drawn from Oswald Spangler’s work, which also discusses the rise and fall of civilizations.

[@andrewklang809]

His complaining about the popular music bands in 10-century Baghdad make me chuckle. D00d was watching The Beatles for the first time and thinking "This is the End of England. I have foreseen it!"

[@popepiusxv]

@@MatthewChenault spanglers name doesnt make this any better, its still conservative froth-writing ^^

[@MatthewChenault]

@@popepiusxv, dismissing it because it is “conservative” is no a good means of discounting them. Even so, Spengler is not necessarily a “conservative.” He was heavily influenced by Nietzsche, Goethe, and Meyer.

[@rokasrastonis4353]

"...diagnose France with BPD" gets funnier the more you think about it

[@alexroselle]

Applying personality disorders to world powers sounds fun and cursed at the same time

[@Felix-gl9dt]

You should take a look at total war attila, one of a few games that specifically depicts the “fall” of empires, it even makes you loose technologies as you research new ones.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

I've considered getting it. Beyond simulating downfall, is the game good/interesting?

[@Felix-gl9dt]

@@Rosencreutzzz yes many people argue it's the best historical total war, especially in terms of atmosphere, the optimisation is a bit bad though.

[@Felix-gl9dt]

@@Rosencreutzzz also playing as the WRE will put you in full crisis management, invasions from all sides, the huns, your own regions breaking away to form separatist states, religious turmoil, economy in shambles. A rare case for a strategy game to have so much tension.

[@justinian-the-great]

@@Rosencreutzzz Oh, I absolutely recommend Attila Total war. That is, in my humble opinion, by far the best strategy game to portray the fall of one civilization (well at least western half of said civilization, Eastern Empire survived it) and a rise of new kingdoms on its soil.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@Rosencreutzzz The game has accurately been described as Survival Strategy because regardless of who you're playing you're not gloriously building an empire, you're desperately trying to survive and maybe, possibly, if you're lucky, stabilize the situation to carve out a little state somewhere. As the traditional empires of West and East Rome and the Sassanid Persians you're playing whack-a-mole with diseases, discontent, rebellion and corruption while also having to deal with a constant influx of barbarian hordes and invaders, so despite the fact that you nominally completely outmatch every other faction in the game you are constantly in damage control mode and are always struggling to to muster up the men to defend your borders. But those barbarians aren't just invading to be mean, a combination of climate change, other barbarians who are fleeing the approaching Huns and the Huns themselves force you to flee into those empires, sometimes completely abandoning your home province to become nomadic because otherwise you'd either die to starvation or the Huns. And you can't just upgrade your home province until it becomes habitable because over the course of the game the fertility in every region gets worse due to climate change. But invading Rome or Persia isn't easy, you have worse units than them and less of them in total and you're on the brink of starvation so you have to rely on those empires falling apart or being distracted by bigger threats elsewhere. Of course after taking a slice of those empires you'll have to defend it from everyone else while surpressing the local Roman inhabitants and dealing with issues like religion. Lastly there are the various Steppe Nomad factions who have the closest to a normal strategy game experience but because they are nomadic they can't really maintain a traditional economy and instead need to rely on looting and turning settled people into vassals that can supply them with tribute thereby driving the rest of the gameplay loop. So instead of building a great empire you run around sacking and subjugating settled peoples, sometimes leaving entire regions barren as a warning. The theming of the game is very heavily based on Christian perceptions of this era so there's a lot of apocalyptic imagery and voice overs which just really add to the feel of doom and gloom, you really get a sense of how to people at the time this must have seemed like the end of the world and in some way Dark Age Western Europe was a post apocalyptic world. Attila isn't really made historically accurate, I mean not much is known about him, he's more so based on his myth, though the Huns themselves are pretty faithfully depicted. In general the game does an amazing job of always making you feel on edge and like you're never quite safe like in survival horror but on the scale of a state. I mean the first objective the game gives you is literally just to survive. As an example of how the mechanics of this game push you into reenacting history, in the later Age of Charlemange expansion I played a campaign as Denmark and even on normal difficulty your starting region of Denmark is literally starving which forces you to quickly head across the North Sea to England. But you are poorer and have worse units than the English kingdoms so you have to carefully play them off each other and create strife so thar they'll fight amongst themselves while you create a foothold. At the same time you can't conquer everything because you can't afford to repair the buildings so you'll end up spending most of the game just sacking cities, as if you were a viking. It's only after you've severely weakened the English Kingdoms and firmly secured your foothold that you can begin to actually conquer the isles but for the start of the game you're just dodging bullets and trying to make sure you never have to face a combined English force.

[@vaiyt]

Decline narratives in general are mostly people using hindsight to label everything after a arbitrarily picked "peak" as an inevitable road to downfall. It would be less reductive to see polities as going through periods of crisis and reform, and sometimes changing in fundamental ways while still formally existing.

[@Historyfan476AD]

John Glubb "Empires only last 250 years" Roman's laugh in over thousand years. I mean the fact the Romans did not fall during the third century crisis (A crisis which split the empire into three, barbarian invasions/sassanid invasions and civil wars. Many Historians still call it a miracle Rome did not fall then) and actually made a come back and then for over 200 years still existed in the west alone, including many victories again proves his ideas are faulty at best.

[@hedgehog3180]

Also the rise of the empire largely was facilitated by the massive land redistribution projects started by Caesar so it literally rose due to welfare. And of course the grain dole had started in the early Republic and literally outlasted the western Roman Empire, only ending in Byzantium with the rise of the Arab Caliphate. If you today seriously suggested that the grain dole weakened the Roman Empire historians would laugh at you because it's the only thing that made large cities like Rome and Constantinople possible in the first place.

[@Historyfan476AD]

@@hedgehog3180 Yeah the Grain dole was like the life blood for the big cities of Rome and Constantinople. Without it no big capitals of their scale. But hey the guy can't some detail like that get in the way of his theory he needs to push.

[@spawel1]

the roman empire fell in 1806

[@cengiztaner4754]

​@@spawel1no it fell in 1922

[@eseleyphx4761]

​@@cengiztaner4754 no it fell into the river of Lego City

[@stoferb876]

The irony of the decadence list is that it much more applies to the rise of Rome than the fall of Rome. Influx of foreigners? Yes, that is how Rome expanded both as a city and as an empire, and the troubles of the state really only started to be fatal when there were no more foreigners in the empire to convert into roman citizens. The late republican and early imperial period had a culture that openly celebrated greed and materialism, while the christianized culture of the late empire of the decline largely denounced materialism. As for "the welfare state" the roman grain dole was instituted during the late republic during the 'rise of the empire'. And was later done away with during the decline. So it's actually exactly the opposite there too. As for the weakening of religion, it's instructive that the fall of the western part of the empire coincides with a period where christianity is really growing ever stronger, not weaker, although it's in some part a response to the decline and not a cause of it.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

Hah, yeah exactly. An earlier script had a few of these examples and talked a lot more about the material/spiritual divide but I noticed that it got a bit off track when I started explaining the councils of Nicea and how Christianity evolved from Judaism and stuff so I then started cutting back a bunch because it was getting very tangential. Really, taking any country and applying his model to them could become a 2000 word affair to debunk some random chart and set of “rules” it took him 10 seconds to create. I do encourage others to do so though, because I find it funny.

[@hedgehog3180]

The Grain Dole actually outlived the Western Empire, it only ended in Constantinople with the rise of the Arab Caliphate in the 600s and the loss of Egypt and the Levant.

[@hedgehog3180]

Also of course the Byzantine Empire experienced some of it's greatest defeats when it was the most fanatically Christian, since it tends to be that defeat generally drives people to seek some kind of internal spiritual answer.

[@dashiellgillingham4579]

Early Christans believed the public baths which were the primary means for most people in most Roman-built cities to wash themselves were sites of pagan worship and frequently banned their use. Disease was severe in the Imperium in this period. It’s not an independent historical curiosity, it’s entangled into it.

[@nsdapcommunism2780]

Completely wrong. I would advise to read “Ancient city” of de couluagnege or whatever his name is 1) in the rise of Rome period foreigners were treated like outlanders, even if they lived inside Roman borders, and Roman citizenship wasn’t some cheap commodity, which is shared with anyone Romans conquered. They even fought their own subject in ITALY, because Romans didn’t want to give them citizenship, despite living and fighting together for centuries. The thought of a barbarian becoming a high rank in the Empire was not possible before decline. Another way to measure Rome’s likeness of foreigners is foreign culture. Remember when Romans banned Hellenic literature because it was considered unRoman? Rise of Greek and other cultures influence and decline of Rome is correlated. 2) Roman religion is what made Rome into greatness, and it’s disintegration is the reason why any expansion stopped, and why Rome turned autocratic. Greed wasn’t cherished in Rome during the rise - on the contrary, when Roman expansion slowed down and religion started to fade away (and with it the sacred institutions of Senate and other traditions) materialist people like Caesar started to appear. Before that materialism wasn’t the motto of the Romans, with people like Cato being a good example. And the fact that Army was always loyal to the senate before Sulla and Caesar is another proof of that. Christianity truly started a new cycle of religious strength, but it was still a foreign religion, which is why Roman traditions couldn’t be supported by Christian dogmas. It is after the Rome fell and Christianity fully settled in Europe we can see the new empires arise.

[@BrainDawgs0NRG0]

After watching the video, I scrolled down and didn't believe the viewer and subscriber count. You're making thoughtful and polished content well beyond your current audience in deserved attention. Keep it up.

[@jasonboomgarden4480]

A really interesting connection here could be talking about the RFC (rise and fall of Civilizations) mods for the earlier Civ games. The Civ IV RFC mod is incredibly interesting, involving actual civilization collapse and new civs spawning from scratch. I'm leaving this comment like halfway into the video so if you talk about this in a little bit I'm def gonna just delete this comment...

[@jasonboomgarden4480]

Okay no, I do think, having watched this video, you should check out RFC on Civ IV BTS. I think it's still definitely engaging with a lot of Glubb's pessimism, but functionally it just plays so much better than the Civ VI RaF expansion. It's also not paid which is nice. RFC comes downloaded with Civ IV Beyond the Sword, so it's super easy to find. It models literal collapse and literal rise, within a world that is not empty. When the civs collapse, their cities remain, just unincorporated into any larger country. And then they can reform later into other or the same civs, only to fall again. It's really unique, and I think it is likely the most 'historical' (if any game can be true to history) Civ game. Still doesn't really do anything to model culture, still is fundamentally great-man theory based, etc. But it's a step in the right direction. Which is why it really sucks that later Civ games just disregarded it.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

Interesting. I'll have to look at it. I've got a soft spot for Civ 4 for some reason even though it's somehow the perfect spot of "not old enough to be charming" but too old to feel like anything but a "worse game" I unironically enjoyed the Colonies game that came with it, even though that one is also in that cursed valley of quality.

[@andreydoronin6995]

I think I played it but it turned out to be very frustrating. Stability felt like a very random parameter (which is probably realistic, lol). Sometimes I would have

[@HDreamer]

Civ IV is the best Civ out there, 5 is okay, 6 is trash

[@whitehawk4099]

I saw an episode of a game show, I think it was "To Tell the Truth", but it might be something else, where Bagot Glubb appeared. There were three men who appeared, and contestants had to guess who was the real Glubb.

[@Rynewulf]

I'd say that guy sounds exactly how an old soldier and politician would sound here in Britain in the 70s. In his mind he probably saw the 'fall' of his empire in real time. Already by the 70s and definitely to this day Britain as a country is increasingly secular, atheist, ethnically mixed, involved in less wars, and 'losing' territory as decolonisation had both popular support and resulted in Britain only directly owned a tiny amount compared to its 1/4 of the Earths surface on paper decades previous. You'll even meet people who still talk and think like him, who think personal freedom, peace, art and reducing poverty are all genuinely bad things and be longing for the Empire. Plenty of Tory Conservative politicians still like that (even our Indian heritage Prime Minister Sunak's family is deeply tied up with the Empire)

[@legateexpendable9308]

I think the "influx of foreigners" isn't talking about the Edict of Caracalla and is probably more about the various Gothic/Vandalic/Frankish etc. migrations that characterized the late Roman empire Didn't read Glubb though so no idea

[@aoneill324]

I think the fact that it can be applied to both pretty well only lends credence to the argument that it's a vague list that doesn't apply well

[@scotts8531]

It's really just broad strokes of non-specific racism

[@petersmythe6462]

I think a much more reasonable set of hypotheses for why empires fall is: 1. Empires are specialized. There are usually a few specific forms of economic extraction and social organization the empire is dependent on and the optimal early strategy is to fully commit to those. If the world changes, the empire often cannot adapt, being committed to those antiquated modes of social and economic activity. 2. Empires are brittle. The breakdown of social and economic order in most countries results in either costly reform or disruptive revolution which are ways to modernize and stabilize their social and economic system to something that can continue to function under current conditions. Empires, however, have difficulty reforming the key, fundamental aspects of what makes them an empire due to their specialization, and are highly likely to experience fragmentation and territory loss during periods of revolution. 3. Empires have enemies. Other rival empires and superpowers may well have a vested interest in exacerbating internally-generated failures of another empire by arming rebels and etc, making much swifter and more decisive failures than would otherwise be expected. 4. Empires can burn themselves out. Often times imperial economic and social forms are predicated on something unsustainable, be it an unlimited influx of slaves, unlimited raw materials, or unlimited economic growth or military expansion in a finite world. In these cases, once the growth goes from exponential to logistic, we have opportunities for the specialization and brittleness of an empire to show themselves.

[@hyperboreanmustache]

My theory: jews

[@waveplay3978]

I find these points pretty enlightening. It rings true. I would even say that this isn't limited to empires, but really any organized sovereign state.

[@johnstajduhar9617]

Rome really started running into problems once they ran out of places to keep conquering, whether it was running up against the Persian borders or the whole shitshow in Germania. It’s kinda like how Nazi Germany’s “economic miracle” was largely based on plundering their neighbors until they ran out of easy targets, at least as I’ve understood it.

[@tonysladky8925]

Man, Civ VI can't introduce new Civs in response to whatever factors, but Civ IV did (well, one of its expansions, I think it was). It was so wild the first time I saw a bunch of cities I'd established overseas declare independence and become a new AI faction. It wasn't a super-complicated system, not really my Civ balkanizing or anything, but it was a cool idea I'd love to see fleshed out in future games.

[@mikaruyami]

I think the Civ IV having new cups and empire name changes was from a mod that simulated earth history l.

[@leesnotbritish5386]

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m interested in how *historically* accurate the way Stellaris models things is

[@aneru9396]

Thanks for this wonderful series. I really enjoyed thinking about your thoughts on what would be the ideal game in order to represent social history.

[@robertrussell5856]

Honestly, the best game for modeling the fall of an empire I've found is CK3. Most of the time empires collapsed because of internal issues, often relating to succession, leading to violent civil wars that either disintegrate the realm or leave them vulnerable to external invasion. Civ and most strategy games don't really have a system like this, so having a believable and realistic way of modeling a decline and fall is extremely difficult.

[@adithyavraajkumar5923]

I agree. Large and powerful states can't last forever, because sooner or later a good ruler is bound to be replaced by a bad one. We don't have immortal god kings, for better or worse.

[@polasamierwahsh421]

Finally someone called his ideas out online

[@RocketHarry865]

Glubb fails to realize how many would be empires were on their rise only for a sudden downturn with major natural disasters or they had unfortunate encounter with a much more powerful rising power who wipes them out.

[@dugong_678]

Really nice! You should look into Lev Gumilyov and his attempts to explain the rises and falls of empires.

[@N01CurryClassEnjoyer]

that's a nice argument senator, why don't you back it up with a source?

[@relix7373]

The Rhye's and Fall Dawn of Civilization mod for Civ 4 is the greatest mod in Civ history. It's still being updated today in fact, and deals with exactly this subject.

[@NineNoRouge]

Haha love the Shaun reference. Great video.

[@miniaturejayhawk8702]

"We do not learn from history because our studies are brief and prejudiced" He is lowkey spitting facts tho...

[@SeraphBunniel]

To address your point on separatism we thought it would be interesting if cities which have been independent long enough could become generic city states with bonuses based on what the city is doing best

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

Soo that's what's happening in California.

[@peperoni_pepino]

This is not really compatible with (current) Civ, but it would be nice if there was a similar game where the 'name'/'leader' of the empire changes each era. So when you enter the Medieval Era, you can choose from one of a few different empires that your empire evolved into. Depending which one you choose, you get some unique bonus. In that case, you could have 'old' empires surviving as city-states, or a Roman empire with low era score splitting into a 'Holy Roman (Frankish)' empire and a 'Byzantine' empire when the new era starts. This would also move the empires closer to their actual era, no ancient era Romans fighting Americans.

[@space__idklmao]

This is exactly what the game Humankind was

[@peperoni_pepino]

@@space__idklmao Ah nice, I will look it up!

[@luxource]

@@peperoni_pepino Unfortunately for Humankind, this whole mechanic of choosing a new civilization every era is also the worst part of the game. It makes it so that every country completely lacks any identity. You are not fighting "Egypt", you are fighting "the purple opponent". Because any turn now they will stop being Egypt and become Poland or Persia or something. I can bet that no other dev is going to incorporate this mechanic into their strategy game after this experiment.

[@peperoni_pepino]

@@luxource Ah, good to know. I still think there is probably some potential for decline systems -- maybe implement a "multiple cultures per empire" system (like Vic3?) where an empire can decline by having its cultures split into pieces? But yeah I don't see any AAA game playong with this, maybe some smaller indie games can try different things.

[@solinvictus6562]

Great video! Interesting and funny

[@starhalv2427]

Yup, these dates Glub chose are completely arbirtary Also westcentric. Completely ommiting various Indian empires, China and even Mongolia.

[@liamedwards7644]

i know this vid is a year old but I'm excited to see your take, with these facts in mind, when Millenia releases.

[@poimon5607]

I'm from turkey and didn't even know the ottomans motto was "The Eternal Goverment" that kinda goes hard

[@cowit1679]

yeyeye new youtuber to be hype to see uploads from.

[@VivBrodock]

? how did this guy place the end of Rome at 170, even assuming he means the western empire that ended in 476. Assuming he means when the empire split that was in 285 Marcus Aurelius (literally one of the Five Good Emperors) was Emperor in 170 his reign lasted until 180. what is this mad lads math?!

[@juliusschwarz9594]

I asssume this is in reflection of the paradigm set by Gibbon in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" which begins with the first "Purple-Born" - Commodus - with whom the decline is narrated to have begun. It still is quite bonkers regardless!

[@johnstajduhar9617]

His whole diatribe is basically Copium over the contraction of the British empire.

[@InternetMameluq]

I really disagree with your assessment of the Civ 6 era score being poor. It's a game mechanic, and not intended to simulate just imperial stagnation, but reward participation in the game systems, and act as a rubber banding mechanic. To an extent it does model stagnation as a nation that is failing to develop in any of the spheres that reward era score will receive low score, but it primarily acts as a means to gamify civilisation competitions, and punish over expansion as well as developing too fast.

[@LibertyMonk]

I mean, most nations are quashed before they exist, fail to survive their formation, or die with their founders. A few special (expansionist) nations survive for two or more generations and thus become empires by virtue of not falling apart. If "empires" only includes nations that survived a hundred years or more, I could see the average being around 250 years factoring in the few thousand year empires and the much more numerous (but less expansive) shorter lived empires like the Incan, Aztec, Mali, Kongo, Kilwan, Swedish, Bahmani, Vijayanagara, Taungoo, Majapahit, etc. There have been so many empires (and technically-not-empires) that you can easily cherry pick enough examples, or select an exclusionary definition, to make any generalization true.

[@Nitesurgeon]

Oh hey I used one of your background tracks in my custom music mod back during my Skyrim days. Neato

[@Rosencreutzzz]

I'm guessing Bowerlake. That track is so magical and good.

[@Grziblet]

I really enjoyed the video! The academic aspect is well-presented and does not prove a strain to follow, good job!

[@carlosarias7543]

How tf do you have less than 380 subs lol Keep up the good work, man 👍🏻👍🏻

[@swagmund_freud6669]

Glubb's list is bizarre and to call him an academic is an insult to academia. If I were to define what I'd expect when a civilization is declining, just off the top of my head, it would include climatic shifts, disruption of food supplies, decline in life expectancy, high levels of internal violence and terrorism, and low trust in government and established institutions. So basically just modern day Haiti or Somalia. All of those can be measured, at least contemporaneously.

[@requitedhail8953]

I just want to appreciate jupiter playing in the beginning. its such a great piece

[@niclas7955]

For a really fascinating experience of a rise and fall I definetly recommend to look at the history of Valois Burgundy in the 14th and 15th Century - man what a rise and what a all or nothing fall

[@MetzanV]

Hay! I recently stumbled across your amazing channel and just saw that video. While there is a great chance you've seen this already, there is a very interesting series of articles on the "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry" blog called The Fremen Myth. It presents an interesting lense on Glubbs ideas you presented. Namely, the aspect how "string men create good times, which in turn create weak men, which create bad times, which create strong men again", as the popular adage goes.

[@hedgehog3180]

Defining the period where Russia was “great” as being the Romanovs and saying that “greatness” ended with the Russian Revolution makes you think this guy died before the cold war and this is some hilarious case of a wrong prediction but like no. He was alive during the Cold War but he apparently doesn't think that the fucking Soviet Union was anymore powerful than Imperial Russia, which everyone regarded as a perpetual backwater. Apparently one of the two most powerful nations in the world wasn't as powerful as the country that got invaded by Poland, Sweden and France. I guess maybe his chart doesn't count the contemporary but like if you're going to put Russia on there it's just ridiculous to not have the Soviet Union as that was obviously the height of Russian power.

[@hedgehog3180]

And also the Soviet Union only lasting about 80 years pretty succintly debunks his ideas. It lasted for two generations at most yet managed to become one of the two most powerful states in the world, having global reach and influence and leading to the very development of the idea of a super power. During most of the cold war the raw on paper strength of the Soviet Union and it's allies far exceeded that of the US and it's allies with the only exception being at sea. Yet due to internal problems it collapsed without ever going through the cycle he described and by it's end it was far more conservative and regressive than the west, and hell the UK was also far more conservative than the US when it fell according to his model.

[@DmitryFrolov1]

Well, actually, the USSR, de jure and de facto, was not Russia. It was a union of republics created by the Bolsheviks on a national basis, which had their own national elite, language, separate communist party and the right to secede from the union. With the exception of the RSFSR, which did not have its own titular nationality and party, it was partially divided into smaller republics and autonomies. The USSR did not legally consider itself the heir to the Russian Empire and did not even have any geographical reference in its name. A state with such a name could theoretically appear anywhere. The thesis that the USSR was more powerful than the Russian Empire is also controversial. The Russian Tsardom at the time of Ivan the Terrible already owned more territory than any other European state. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire, having defeated Napoleon's power and entered Paris, began to dominate continental Europe and at the Congress of Vienna determined the structure of the post-war world. And in general it had a much healthier economic and administrative structure than the USSR.

[@roychen5235]

​@DmitryFrolov1 I mean if you're going to be picky and choosy about moments you can make arguments about any period of history as better. For instance, by the end of WW2 the USSR had the largest land army in the history of the world parked directly in the centre of Europe. What is undeniable is that the USSR was when Russia had most global influence. During the time periods you speak about, Russia had very little influence on anything outside of Eurasia.

[@xionkuriyama5697]

Praying for the algorithim to give ya a boost, this is great!

[@marianm8174]

One thing I'll note about the Golden age system is that it actually encourages planed growth rather than trying to gobble as much as possible, as early as possible, because then you tend to stagnate in the next age, and risk losing all that growth you made while loyalty was strong.

[@iannordin5250]

I do think he was onto something about how societies expand, get comfortable, and slowly fade, and if im being honest his steps map quite well, the only thing I think he was wrong about is the fatalism and timescale at which this happens.

[@elowin1691]

If you pick an arbitrary date as your "peak", look at the history in the broadest strokes possible, ignore all the major shakeups that defined the period both before and after your "peak", squint really hard and sing your national anthem, I guess it could vaguely look like that.

[@SgtCandy]

"Doc it feels like I have trouble managing my emotional state, like I make decisions on impulse before I think them through. What is that called when you have this?" Glub, impersonating a psychiatrist: "I'm so sorry, you are French"

[@M.Ghilas]

It seems similar(or more like a copy pasrte)to ibn khaldun's theory about Assabia(عصبية ) its relationship with the peak and golden age of the empire (civilization) and its downfall.

[@baabaaer]

Ibn Khaldun only give kingdoms 120 years though, which grandpas being the creators, the dads the maintainors, and the kids squander everything. Also, his model seems to close to the kabilah of Arabs. Malay sultanates fall and rise quicker.

[@zengamer321]

while i dont think the golden age mechanic is very good, i can see where it is coming from. civ is a zero sum game and when you play civ you view your civ in terms of progress to winning. growing bigger, getting more resources, teching up, gaining map control, building an army, getting better production are things that progress towards a win. at the same time the opponent is also doing all those things. so if you slow down and stagnate and don't make sufficient progress towards your win condition, that's a "fall" relative to the opponent. the chance of you winning vs opponent winning just shifted in the opponent's favour. and if you make massive gains in a short period of time then you're getting ahead and that's a "rise". so i think what civ is doing is leverage this perception of rise vs fall that players are likely to get within the context of playing the game to determine the ages. and the mechanic fundamentally is there to create both feedback loops and short term goals that feel somewhat intuitive. a golden age is a positive feedback loop for getting ahead and also a short term goal for a player that they can sometimes manipulate to get a bonus. a dark age is a negative feedback loop that helps civs which fall behind bounce back. both getting ahead and falling behind are meant to be relative to some baseline rate of forward progress. neither are about actually becoming weaker merely not moving forward fast enough or faster than expected. the only way to actually become weaker is for the player to make a misplay or get harassed or killed by an opponent. or in age of empire terms, you suck at macro and you get supply blocked and forget wheelbarrow so uhh gl you're about to lose the game.

[@houndofculann1793]

That "relative to some baseline" is actually based on the average technological/civic progress of all players in your current game. The eras change when a certain portion of the player nations possess techs/civics of the next era. This means that the advancement speed of the eras varies wildly between difficulties and early/late game and also that you can slightly manipulate the rate of advancement by not researching the techs/civics of the next era as fast. I think as a whole the system is a good one for the purpose of incentivising actions that help in acquiring your victory condition while also providing a type of comeback mechanic with the unique Dark Age civics and the Heroic Age reward for getting a Golden Age during a Dark Age. But at the same time it's a bad system for presenting historical events.

[@aloseman]

That was fun. Thank you.

[@lockrime]

With all that emphasis on expansion, I find it interesting Glubb included the Roman Empire (separately from the Republic at that) Because... The Empire didn't really expand much? That was almost entirely during the Republic.

[@petersmythe6462]

It's not particularly common for the more massive colonial-like empires that are more frequently discussed, but another possible end state of an empire is that instead of collapse and fragmentation, the empire manages to solve its contradictions and modernize its social form, ending the empire but not its territorial extent. Oppressed groups are given full citizenship and equal rights, or successfully wiped out nearly in their entirety, to be replaced by loyal citizens of the dominant group, who themselves have full citizenship and equal rights. Alternatively, revolution manages to happen in a way that unifies the disempowered among the dominant citizen group with those of the subject group against the power structures of the empire. The result of any is these is the continuation of a state with the territory of the former empire but with essentially all provinces cored.

[@abewright1713]

Really good video

[@gaberobison680]

Empire seems to be specifically the state of subjugating others. If those people have been throughly integrated, you’d rent an empire, you’re just a larger state. Empire implies violence and subjugation as that’s what distinguishes it

[@MrTheTaterMeister]

"Decadence is marked by: *defensiveness*" he read, in a mocking tone

[@baronmunro1494]

I think the point about dark ages not actually being an "Age of Darkness" is a bit overstated. Periods of time where there are marked gaps in the historical record, they're not complete mysteries, we do know a bit about them, and generally they actually are times of adversity.

[@hyperboreanmustache]

There is a certain international group which control academia, central banks and international institutions that push the factors which cause the decadence of a nation. They don’t want you to notice.

[@gawddamn6186]

For me, the actual age of an empire would be based on the revolution that formed that society (while the UK was born in the Glorious Revolution, France was born in 1945 after WW2), and i mean actual revolution, not simply a change on how the state is organized. With the theme of this video, the fall of empires would be caused by lack of touch with the masses and new political groups, unsustainable state apparatus, and external factors

[@truegamer1390]

Subbed for the vicky 2 music alone. Such great OST for talking history

[@lelyanra]

Oh btw, great video. loved it. Much better cadence of speech!

[@matthewbrandt5053]

This is one of the few times KZbin gave me a video I genuinly find enjoyable because it hits so many niches, thank you for helping us nerds

[@Valiguss]

The best theory I’ve seen to explain the rise and fall of systems was that of elite competition When there are more and more people trying to occupy elite positions, snd only a finite number of positions the new elite, who want the positions they believe they are owed or simply want to have, resct(often violently) to take control

[@DaRealKakarroto]

Regarding fall and decline, there might be a new game (called Ara History Untold) where civilizations/factions/whatever-they-will-be-called will be removed or disqualified or something and only thriving ones will remain. Maybe something to have a look into for a follow up video of this?

[@hydra5758]

I saw their recent gameplay reveal and it definitely looks interesting. They talked less about that and more about the emphasis on creating your own vision of what 'success' looks like, across like 7 different metrics.

[@delusionnnnn]

When I did some work in an urban school district, the teacher was using netbooks playing FreeCiv (the free Civilization clone) in their world history course. Since I wasn't there how to tell teachers how to do their job, I didn't, but I had a bad feeling about it. Sure enough, most of the time was spent on the half of the class that wasn't computer savvy, some whom had never played a computer game newer than their bottom tier cellphones had by default, some who didn't have internet access at home, etc. It was a very poor area. The basic 4X gaming concept was something this crowd wasn't able to easily learn for the most part, since even the videogame savvy set generally didn't have any experience with this genre, which is largely aimed at a slightly older cohort these days. So I guess my observation is that there's more than one way these games can fail to teach history.

[@marcuspapst]

I am not agreeing with Glubb but I Imagine when he talked about migration he was directly thinking about the Roman empire and the migration period with started around 375 AD. A lot of historians blame the migration period at leas partially on the fall of the roman empire, but they then forget about the eastern half I guess.

[@MatthewChenault]

The eastern Roman Empire was not as badly affected by the first waves. It was when the Slavs came in that they had issues, but - unlike the west - they had the mountains of the Balkans protecting most of their major core territory.

[@laisphinto6372]

I doubt rome would have ever fallen If they would Stop for Like 5 Seconds Waging civil wars ,yes they still fought civil war meanwhile the barbarian Invasions Happen

[@christianchiakulas852]

There's a mod for Civ 4 called Realism Invictus that really greatly models new civilizations arising out of others collapsing

[@tyrannosauruscock]

What’s the music at the beginning?

[@tabishshibli4067]

Amazing work. Keep it up. Keep reading and diversify your theories to psychoanalysis. Lots of love and wishes from India. :)

[@Kuudere-Kun]

I agree with all of the basic point of this video, but I can't so easily agree with the complete dismissal of Glubb's chart. I never heard of him before today but kind of independently came to some similar conclusions. Empire is perhaps simply not the best word. For one thing I'd say Rome fell more then once, the Crisis of the Third Century absolutely counts as a Fall and then Aruelian, Diocletian and Constantine are attempted Reboots with the last one being the one that stuck. And it did indeed begin about 250 years after Rome conquered Alexandria. What do you mean by finding Alexander and his Successors particularly egregious? Are one of those who refuses to count the Hellenistic Era as a single civilization just because it's geopolitically divided? Because I hate when people take that position. Do you have a video using Strategy Games as a framing device to critique Edward Gibbon?

[@fluxk7506]

This video might just be a master peace. It is a shame that I have only just found it now. It is extremely Niche, but works the line between easy enough to understand for newbs to historiography and thoughtful and fun enough for those of us who know enough to give a drunk explanation at a party to people who don't really care.

[@WildFungus]

with the super golden ages game mode you can pretty watch an empire fall from being in successive dark ages it's great.

[@aleksapetrovic6519]

I believe you should look at Field of Glory: Empires. It is a game set in Hellenistic Age and it precisely focus on rise and fall of Empires. In that game pritty much the more your Empire becomes complex making it place of extravegant corruption and overly complex bireaucracy until some minor incovinice (since this is Hellenistic Age, it is usually random military defeat or some unreast in the province) start the distruction of your empire. Personally it would benefit more if you roleplayed more as a character relations, but it's still not bad.

[@nathangamble125]

"given the eternality of nations in civ's model, falls can't introduce new nations, and there's no way they can change that" They do in Civ II and in Call To Power. Some cities will split off to form a new independent AI nation in some situations (e.g. if your capital is sacked) in those games. The implementation is overly-simplistic in my opinion, but the mechanic exists. It's entirely possible that the developers could add back similar mechanics for Civ VII or later games, and I think they should, hopefully more fleshed out and applying to a wider range of situations.

[@eldrago19]

Regarding Christianity, in Glubb's context viewing the Christianisation of Rome as a cause of its downfall was (and still is) somewhat received wisdom (see Decline and Fall), so it is quite possibly what he meant.

[@crepel]

This man actually had Religious Settlements for panth and took Fire Goddess

[@PiotrDzialak]

What about Czechoslovakia? It always existed as an empire and will always be an empire. Debunked!

[@Batmans_Pet_Goldfish]

Wait, where is Egypt, China and Mesopotamia on that list? wtf?

[@elpsykoongro5379]

And the mongol empire

[@siyacer]

amazing

[@ianantunes973]

I can’t believe you didn’t pick religious settlements, the best pantheon

[@badusername9903]

u always have barely any humor in these video and then catch me off guard with wordplay and "british diplomacy" i love it

[@ic5889]

Empires might only last 250 years but conservatives claiming that their empire is definitely collapsing at any given moment is forever

[@henrykkeszenowicz4664]

After studying the fall of Western Roman Empire, I think that the decline of any society happens because of people finding and exploiting any flaws in it's system. Roman Empire rose by military expansion and fell due to severely flawed succession system which led to countless civil wars. Religious disunity, climate change and subsequent mass barbarian migration didn't help either, but if Romans in 400s A.D. were as united and as vigorous as they were in the Punic Wars, they'd survive all external problems. Instead, the Diocletian's reforms led to the decline lf civil rights and left no incentive for regular Romans to join the army, and thus after some time Roman legions died in civil wars, never to be replenished. Another problem is individuals. There were no great people with long enough reign to fix all the issues as they were murdered by others who seek power. The 250 year system would sorta apply, but then Rome cheeses it's way through it by reinventing itself time and time again. Pre-Marian Republic, Late Republic, Principate, Dominate, Ostrogoths/Early Byzantium, Macedonian Dynasty, Alexios Komnenos, Nicaean Empire and then it declined for good. All of theese periods saw Roman Empire have it's rise and fall time and time again. Speaking of Achaemenid Empire, the only reason they fell is Alexander who was a conpletely broken and overpowered character. Had he caught a stray Persian arrow to the face, Achaemenids would've probably repelled the Greek invasion and collapse way later due to internal instanbility and a millionth Egyptian revolt.

[@chain173]

Good grief. This was hilarious. 😂

[@Absolute_Zero7]

An interesting place to look at when discussing Glubb's model of falling empires might be the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire, that being the empire's overly defensive mentality with few sparks of agression. I want to look at this considering the perspective of the empire post Basil II, where Basil wipes out the Bulgarians, takes control of most of Anatolia, and then the emperors after him proceed to do... nothing. You did mention how an empire isn't just defined by its ability to constantly expand borders, but something can be said about an empire reaching a point where its satisfied with what it has, and then leaving the institutions that got it to where it reached to rot, and when all of a sudden your age of prosperity is threatened, you don't have the means to defend yourself because instead of making sure the army is in top shape, you spent the last 100 reading books whilst the theme system decayed into worthlessness. This isn't a theme that is limited to discussions on empire, and also extends into issues and everyday life - with how being satisfied with what you've built results in a neglect that you forget how to fix by the time problems arise. I'm not saying this defend Glubb's work, or to say that his conclusions are valid, but to point out that even if vague I do think there is a trail of value in his line of thinking.

[@cryoshakespeare4465]

It seems like an extension of that saying "bad times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make bad times" to a civilizational scale. I could see it having a basic truth, but he ties it to rather deterministic signifiers that seem questionable, as you point out.

[@Hell_O7]

Oh woe, the five day work week...

[@LoudWaffle]

Aghast and crying tears of laughter at Kant's bizarre understand of the physiology of black people. 5:52

[@roowco1]

if we defined a fall of an empire as simply a civil war and/or a loss of territory due to the aftermath of a war, what would you say is the average lifespan of an empire?

[@roychen5235]

Depends on definitions. Is a palace coup a civil war? Is a skirmish with steppe nomads which result in a settlement getting sacked count as the latter? States are dynamic, and their borders and spheres of influence constantly change even within a lifetime.

[@Lightwolf234]

Man I hate how people use “the Dark Age” as something horrible. As some age of barbarism and anarchy and chaos. A horrible time to be alive. I mean is something like the Industrial Age really any better then something like the Middle Ages, what the Dark Age is usually used for to describe, for the everyday person? I beg to differ.

[@TapOnX]

Depending on the metrics, and of course the geographic focus, one could definitely make an argument that the dark ages were a period of crisis. As far as I know, literacy, urbanization, work specialization, complexity of industry and trade, suffered as the Western Roman Empire declined. But yes, in terms of the quality of life for an average person, it was not a particularly horrifying time to be alive.

[@Fernybun]

The dark ages term is just Enlightenment era mental masturbation and self back patting, it's a view of the past that diminishes the own advancements and struggles of said era to propel up the actual one as more sophisticated and valuable.

[@elgato71]

The fact that we are in the dark about the dark ages is a hint enough why it was dark. Urbanization fell drastically post-rome in the west and cities are the primary contributor to new ideas, industry & intellect. After central authority collapsed, most of western Europe was in a state of civilizational anarchy with small scale wars all around, it's not a very good environment for prosperity to take hold. So yes the dark ages were very real and saying it isn't is just historical revisionism, however this does not mean the average peasant was suffering more during that age, it's civilization that suffered, two very different things.

[@legitplayin6977]

@@FernybunUh I know this is very random but where did you get your pfp from? It’s very cute

[@Fernybun]

@@legitplayin6977 the artist is frenkyhw!

[@michaelshaffield642]

10:51 did you just take +2 faith from geothermal fissures over a few settler

[@alek8516]

As an avid civilization 6 player, if the game took away my Era points because I made a mistake or the computer out maneuvered me, I'd be really sad especially if I was trying to unwind after a long day. It doesn't model reality, but that's OK. Neither does Paper Mario ❤

[@joshwolf6932]

I still think it's crazy that the dude claimed the Roman Empire fell in 180 when it was still the greatest powerhouse in Europe, even in its decline in the 3rd century crisis. And Byzantine existed as one of the greatest powers in Europe for a thousand years after Rome fell to the Goths.

[@gregory-of-tours]

It's like he read a bit of Toynbee (or maybe Spengler) and decided to write a pamphlet based on it that removes all the nuance of something that is arguably already overly simplistic (despite the immense length)

[@andrewdzierwa1270]

The renaissance coincided with the reformation of Christian, Calvinism Lutheranism and such. Martain Luther himself having a lot to do with it having translated the Bible from Latin and making it available to everyone in there own languages, causing a massive spiritual awakening which caused people to have a personal relationship with God rather than through the church. Which opened up the door to the renaissance

[@El_Presidente_5337]

Me on my way to watch this for the second or third time.

[@HiddenDragon555]

If seems to me that Glubb is defining an Empire as only counting as a n Empire during the periods where it's actively expanding. I'm not sure how well that matches up with the time spans he's given though.

[@amir_os754]

I think this really misses the point. The Fate of Empires is obviously more of a philosophical starting point than some fleshed out academic theory - it should be treated that way. The interesting idea he puts forward is that fundamentally the rise and fall of empires is more of a sociological phenomenon than a material one, and he attempts to formulate a basis for looking at different stages of superpowers with an emphasis on sociology. He has some convincing arguments too, and reading the original paper he does at least try to get close to defintions. Tbh its really hard to create objective definitions in a subject like history, especially when you are ambitious enough to try to generalize and include both the Assyrian empire and American superpower in the same model. This focused too much bashing the guy born in 1890s Britain for his early 1900s thoughts about morality.

[@laisphinto6372]

IT also really depends even way late into the Western Roman Empire IT was never doomed to fail ,IT Always Had a Chance to recover Like during the crisis of the third century or Düring punic wars ,Events that at the time seemed to wipe Out rome from existence but rome survived. Thats also why No one actually can Pinpoint on one agreed reason why IT failed. Also the reasons given Tell less about rome and more about the Dude claiming IT Like how conseratives Claim rome Fell because of decadence ,loss of morals meanwhile liberals Claim IT Had fallen because IT wasnt progressive enough which Shows how both dont understand rome at all and heavily Force current modern politics into ancient Times with No understanding of ancient politics. For example rome was heathenous decadent according to Senators since the Sack of carthage and rome was so progressive the father of a family was legally allowed to kill His children without Pushback and foreigners werent treated Well at all unless proven. Also the comparison of optimates and popularies to modern conseratives and progressives ignored that These party "lines" werent structure at all and depended Not really on Policy and more on how someone achieves Power . Hell Pompey Magnus today Seen AS a conserative in reality was the one who gave Power Back to the Tribüne of the plebs and His entire career was very anti conserative

[@aapjeaaron]

come on man. Grub would put the start of the US empire at 1778, putting the decline now. which is why I think it resonates with people and drives it popularity, even though it's absolute nonsense.

[@nixonator89]

the only game i know that does this kind of thing semi-competantly is Field of glory: empires

[@durianjaykin3576]

Man 10th century arabia sounds fun lol